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Yeah, eink is a great idea, but it feels like it's been just languishing in the "zone of OK" for quite a while, while 99% of industry research dollars are focus

Yeah, eink is a great idea, but it feels like it's been just languishing in the "zone of OK" for quite a while, while 99% of industry research dollars are focused on fast-update vivid color light-emitting displays. Unfortunately the latter are arguably more widely applicable, and vivid color displays are reallly easy to sell to consumers, while the charms of something like eink are more subtle up front (even if very apparent in the long term). Eink-type displays, that emphasize long-period eye comfort and texture over vivacity and color, are probably a smaller niche. Niches don't really get the money... and subtlety doesn't sell. Oh well.

derekp7 12y ago
How about this -- a billboard sized e-ink display. That would let advertisers swap out billboard ads based on time slot (prime time would be rush hours, maybe advertising Crains Business magazine in the morning, and beer in the afternoon rush hour). Or, someone could purchase a flash add that displays for 10 minutes on all billboards in the city. Things like that would be a perfect fit for e-ink.
- snogglethorpe 12y ago
  Indeed. There are also (at least around here) vast quantities of poster-sized dynamic advertising displays in pedestrian walking areas that are used "statically" (only update maybe ever minute or so). Right now they use giant lcd monitors for this (hung on the wall like a poster), but they've got to be sucking up a lot of power... Eink with improved contrast and color support would be very useful...
- justincormack 12y ago
  I think the colour and motion is more effective at making people notice. And putting these things up is still expensive so the extra hardware costs do not matter so much. And I don't know where to buy giant e-ink displays, and how much they are.
  - derekp7 12y ago
    That is actually part of the problem -- until the patents run out for e-ink, we won't see these advanced applications.
- qbrass 12y ago
  A billboard sized e-ink display is just a flip-disc display. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display The magic of e-ink is in making the pixels small enough to provide a useable resolution on small screens.
  - snogglethorpe 12y ago
    Being electromechanical though, flip-disk displays apparently have significant maintenance costs, as display elements fail quite frequently. Eink would probably be much better on that front, which would be very beneficial for applications in hard-to-service locations ... like billboards... One of the earliest applications of eink (before eink "paper" was a thing) was actually in advertising signs with huge feature sizes (10s of cm), so big pixels are not something new to eink.

derekp7 12y ago

How about this -- a billboard sized e-ink display. That would let advertisers swap out billboard ads based on time slot (prime time would be rush hours, maybe advertising Crains Business magazine in the morning, and beer in the afternoon rush hour). Or, someone could purchase a flash add that displays for 10 minutes on all billboards in the city. Things like that would be a perfect fit for e-ink.

snogglethorpe 12y ago
Indeed. There are also (at least around here) vast quantities of poster-sized dynamic advertising displays in pedestrian walking areas that are used "statically" (only update maybe ever minute or so). Right now they use giant lcd monitors for this (hung on the wall like a poster), but they've got to be sucking up a lot of power... Eink with improved contrast and color support would be very useful...
justincormack 12y ago
I think the colour and motion is more effective at making people notice. And putting these things up is still expensive so the extra hardware costs do not matter so much. And I don't know where to buy giant e-ink displays, and how much they are.
- derekp7 12y ago
  That is actually part of the problem -- until the patents run out for e-ink, we won't see these advanced applications.
qbrass 12y ago
A billboard sized e-ink display is just a flip-disc display. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display The magic of e-ink is in making the pixels small enough to provide a useable resolution on small screens.
- snogglethorpe 12y ago
  Being electromechanical though, flip-disk displays apparently have significant maintenance costs, as display elements fail quite frequently. Eink would probably be much better on that front, which would be very beneficial for applications in hard-to-service locations ... like billboards... One of the earliest applications of eink (before eink "paper" was a thing) was actually in advertising signs with huge feature sizes (10s of cm), so big pixels are not something new to eink.